


Mr Westruther's Temper, Tempered

by healingmirth



Category: Cotillion - Georgette Heyer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingmirth/pseuds/healingmirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being rejected on every front ought to have been a lowering experience for Jack, but it wasn't.  Really, it wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr Westruther's Temper, Tempered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twistedchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/gifts).



Mr Matthew Penicuik's favorite grand-nephew had rarely aspired to the claim, and given his uncle's peculiar disposition, it was unlikely that he could have earned it if he'd wanted to. His uncle's favor had been as much Jack's birthright as any title among the peerage, and the fact that it was first formed of reflected glory from his grandmother didn't diminish the value he had assigned to it, any more than a title's worth was diminished because it was handed down from previous generations.

It was thus that he found himself wholly unprepared for having to defend the position, and unsure whether he even wanted to. Previously, he'd depended on Mr Penicuik's disinclination to change his mind, rather than attempted to work against it, as everyone else in his life had. Jack's preferences, and many of his greatest joys in life, depended on working within the familiar patterns to best advantage.

It took just a handful of visits to Arnside House for Jack to confirm that his uncle was as intractable as always; while he spared a few moments to curse his life's complications, those handful of visits also convinced him that all the shine had quite worn off the role, and no inheritance was worth that amount of trouble. There were new heiresses seeking husbands every Season, after all, and wooing one of them would be far more likely to include pursuits that Jack enjoyed, rather than rambling about a great echoing house, inconvenient from everywhere, for the handful of hours when his uncle chose to grace company with his presence.

His ennui wasn't limited to his standing in the family: it seemed as though the shine had worn off a great many things of late, and he found himself facing a Season with markedly fewer amusements than he'd anticipated before his uncle's irritating summons in February.

All taken together, it was quite a change in fortune. Anyone less impressed with himself would almost certainly have turned to drink, gaming or ill-advised company as a balm to his depressed spirits, but Mr. Jack Westruther was so armored by detachment and wit that he barely had need to develop resilience of spirit.

Still, Jack performed a very tolerable imitation of one who was hiding and licking his wounds, for one who was doing nothing of the sort. His acquaintances could be excused for mistaking it. Jack simply preferred to entertain himself, was all.

And so Mr Matthew Penicuik's favorite grand-nephew found himself in the entirely unexpected position of feeling wanted by no one, and facing one of the most boring seasons in memory.

**

The one turn about that Jack was well-pleased with was his placement as Lord Dolphinton's least favorite cousin. He felt that there was a measure of pride to be found in a distinction like that, and it suited them both admirably to see as little of each other as possible.

This was simplified by Dolph and his dearly devoted wife making a hasty exit from Town as soon as they could settle affairs. With their departure, Jack found himself with one fewer impediment to his equanimity.

Dolph's favorite cousin and his bride-to-be saw a great deal of Lord Dolphinton and the former Miss Plymstock before their removal to Ireland. It was an exhausting process, and much of the burden for managing Lady Dolphinton fell to Freddy. It taxed him, but Kitty was so persuasive in her request and so effusive in her thanks and praise of Freddy that he hardly remembered the pain in the moments after.

Whether or not one remembered the pain from being unseated by an unexpected branch, the practice of it did nothing to lessen the pain when it happened again.

**

With Dolph safely settled, Kitty's attention seemed to go on alert for a new project, and all it took was a casual comment from Freddy's sister to set Kitty haring off after Jack's well-being.

For his part, Freddy Standen was perfectly content for Jack to keep his distance from the family, and felt not the slightest twinge of the burden Kitty seemed to be carrying over having refused Jack's hand.

The problem was that his wife, who rarely shared his opinion unless she deferred to it, had begun asking questions in a worrying manner, one that Freddy was well familiar with as the eldest son and brother amidst the females in his family. (In fact, the more time passed, the more Freddy thought that he was likely to be the Standen with the most experience with managing females who made every effort to not appear managing. His father seemed to be armored against inconvenience at least as strongly as Jack was.)

Kitty, bless her, did ask the most provoking questions, and Freddy worried constantly that his willingness to indulge her in private would lead to a disastrous slip of propriety in public. He was beginning to have an inkling that it was a very different thing to manage a naïve fiance than it was to shepherd a sister. Sharing this observation with his father resulted in his father's typical amused smile, and in no helpful advice, whatsoever.

So Kitty continued to poke at the boundaries of whom one might know in society, and what one might know about them, and how one was or was not allowed to air those thoughts. This was no more apparent as over a late breakfast one morning, when the conversation turned to Jack, as it frequently did. "Do you suppose he is quite pockets-to-let, Freddy?" she asked. It was a question that was well enough on its own, but for the fact that Kitty then proceeded to demonstrate knowledge of many of the ways in which a young man in Town might waste his blunt.

What Freddy was beginning to suspect, but could not know to be true without asking outright, was that Jack's family's holdings served him quite well, but only when coupled with Jack's considerable wits and his manners, and a fair serving of ruthlessness at the tables.

Because Jack's reputation was not entirely borne by his closet, it suited him to brave the wilds of fashion on his own. The right set of words to a young tailor in need of a patron, if paying cut-rate for tailoring could be called patronage, resulted in Jack's willingness to (in an appropriate tone of condescension) share that tailor's name with a young buck who admired Jack's coat. Freddy could say what he liked about Jack's dress-sense; Jack knew that his form would do justice to a competent tailor's effort.

Jack could not, and would not be seen to be Economizing, but again, it was only natural that a little financial economy would occur from a blow to the heart. Not that his heart had been in anyway engaged or in any way damaged.

**

When that small corner of Jack's brain bemoaned the fact that no one wanted him, that was not in fact the case. He never lacked for polite female companionship, and had a fair expectation of being able to truly turn Meg's head with a minimum of effort if he wished; Meg's favor had never been a challenge to obtain. She would certainly continue to entertain him, probably well past the point where she ought to do so. His reputation as her cousin and place as her favorite was quite undamaged by the events that had such a lowering effect on the rest of his expectations.

As lovely and charming as she could be, she was as constant as he had any reason to expect from a woman. He sought fiercer game.

His pursuit of a blonde ended with him half-convinced that the blonde coin wasn't worth the metal it was minted from. Half a dalliance with a brunette convinced him that they weren't to his preference either, which left the red-heads, an unappetizing concept even if he had been planning on a companion for public appearances, which he was not.

London provided many amusements to fill his time while awaited a subject worth his effort. He drank, but not to such excess that he lost his head at cards, and won more than he lost, but only to an extent that made his compatriots shake their heads at his luck, and never to swear off gambling against him.

It wasn't that he needed to win, or even that he was trying to. His brain simply tended towards the mathematical when left unattended with more enthralling pursuits like trying to avoid Gentleman Jackson's own fists from rattling his skull.

**

And then, nearly as suddenly as Jack found himself adrift, he found himself moored once more, in something not quite as useless as love, with an heiress who also had an unfortunate inheritance of freckles, and a nose that curved just slightly to the left.

Far from only displaying herself, demurely but at an advantageous angle, she could most often be found entertaining her admirers, with her head tossed back to free a laugh from her throat, at a volume that nearly overwhelmed polite expectations. She also paid no attention to Jack beyond the bare minimum due him. Freddy was familiar with Jack's diffidence, but it had been some time since he'd seen Jack to be preoccupied.

A month previous, the thought had occurred to Jack that never had his plans been so easily upended by someone with so little intention of doing so. It was turning out to be an uncomfortably common occurrence, but he welcomed the challenge to come.


End file.
